Wednesday, 28 July 2010

TV

Top Gear
15x05 (25/7/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Inception Infographic by dehahs
(from ~dehahs on deviantART)
Thought the final act of Inception was actually quite easy to follow? Well it wasn't, apparently -- look at this and become even more confused.

Tuesday, 27 July 2010

Monday, 26 July 2010

TV

Sherlock
1x01 A Study in Pink
Excellent, in every respect. So many respects I can't even be bothered to list them all. If you didn't watch it for any reason, you really should.
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Inception (2010)
[#69 in 100 Films in a Year 2010]

Sunday, 25 July 2010

Articles

Comic-Con, Day 3: Where the fans are by Todd VanDerWerff
(from The AV Club)
Sick of the rabid love of Comic-Con? Here's a wonderful, realist's antidote. And it's a must-read even if you are a fan of the uber-con. (Hm, Uber-Con... good name...)

this week on 100 Films

3 new reviews were posted to 100 Films in a Year this week, and they were...

1945-1998 (2003)
Is 1945-1998 actually a film? Or is it a piece of video Art? Or just another online video? Its setup is quite simple: it charts every nuclear explosion between the titular years; the total, by-the-way, is 2,053. These explosions play out as flashing dots on a world map; different colours indicate which country was responsible for the explosion, accompanied by running totals.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Ritchie brings something special to the director’s chair, believe it or not — you may think he’s sold out into blockbusterdom to revive his flagging and repetitive career, but the touches he brings suggest the mind of someone who has control of his material, his camera and his edit, and wants to use them all to try something a bit different, not just another hack-for-hire

Sherlock Holmes (2010)
in The Asylum’s favour, their Sherlock Holmes doesn’t hide what it is. Yes, it’s called simply Sherlock Holmes rather than Sherlock Holmes and the Implausible CGI Monsters, but at least said monsters are plastered all over the DVD cover. If you see that and still expect something faithful to Conan Doyle, more fool you. That said, at times it’s surprisingly faithful to Doyle’s spirit.

More next Sunday.

Saturday, 24 July 2010

TV

The Mentalist
2x23 Red Sky in the Morning [season finale]
Another season over, another smidgen closer to Red John. But only a smidgen, of course.
[Watch it (again) on Demand Five.]

Would I Lie To You?
4x01 (23/7/10 edition)
When last series' opener aired, I suggested Would I Lie To You? was buried on a Monday and should be moved to Friday nights. Well, lookee where it is now! Job well done.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Articles

Why Sherlock is still sleuthing by Tim Masters
(from BBC News)
Quote-packed piece on why a 123-year-old literary detective is still so popular today -- and it is particularly relevant, what with two new stage productions, a new TV series, a new Nintendo DS game, and the Guy Ritchie film all turning up in less than a year (plus more to come).

hm, what shall I go to Comic-Con as? Part 2

hm, what shall I go to Comic-Con as?

Friday, 23 July 2010

TV

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
18x25 (16/7/10 edition) [series finale]
Wossy's last-ever show... on TV... for the BBC. See you next year on ITV, Wossy!
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Articles

Blu-ray Producers: Extras Are for the Fans, By Fans by John Latchem
(from Agent DVD)
A report on the DVD/Blu-ray producers panel at Comic-Con 2010, mainly focused on the importance of special features and if studios are beginning to ignore DVD. A decent read for those interested.

Is A Game of Thrones the most eagerly anticipated TV show ever? by Mathilda Gregory
(from guardian.co.uk)
I reckon it's safe to say "no" on that one, to be honest -- I bet Doctor Who's pre-installed fan base before the 2005 revival would knock it out of the park -- but, still, it sounds interesting.

Lone Star Statements by Matthew Baldwin
(from The Morning News)
Ah, the article title that gives you no clue what the article's about. Try this:
Recently [it was 2005, but then so was this], Time magazine published a list of the 100 best novels. But the praise of professional critics hardly matters to the book-reviewing readers at Amazon.com. A compilation of the best of the worst… about the best.
So there you go. Some of these actually provoke a response more akin to "well, I've not read the book, that might be fair criticism" from me, but as they go on they get increasingly ridiculous and, therefore, funny. Some of my favourites include the quotes about Mrs. Dalloway, Lord of the Flies, 1984 and Slaughterhouse-Five. And Tropic of Cancer (right at the end) probably sums up the general attitude.

RTD on Torchwood by Ian Berriman
(from SFX)
Specifically, the next series -- "one long story, consisting of 10 episodes". Awesome.

Collection Count

Collection Count tracks my DVD/Blu-ray collection via a number of statistics every week.

Only Blu-ray increases this week, pushing me closer still to 100 of them. I can't remember exactly when I got Blu-ray, though I should try to find out -- it's been almost a year and it would be interesting to know just how many I acquire in my first 12 months.

Number of titles in collection: 1,190 [up 2]
Of which DVDs: 1,094 [no change]
Of which Blu-rays: 96 [up 2]

Number of discs in collection: 2,926 [up 2]
Number of films in collection: 1,253 [up 2]
Number of TV episodes in collection: 4,121 [no change]

Statistic of the week:

James Bond titles:
23
(1.93% of the total)

No particular reason for this -- I was just looking for something easy while I continue to work on a slightly unusual stat (which will appear in a fortnight, as next week is the running time update).

There are, of course, only 22 official Bond films. The 23rd thing isn't Never Say Never Again, nor the crappy '60s Casino Royale, nor even the TV Casino Royale (which I still haven't seen, actually). No, it is, of all things, the Die Another Day Special Edition bonus disc -- because the Ultimate Edition left off extras (why? The fools!) I kept a copy of the original SE's second disc. Because I'm like that.

See you next week, faithful reader.

Red trailer

Remember the Red (and/or RED, if it matters) teaser trailer from last month? Well, there's a full-sized trailer already:



Still looks like a ton of fun.

Thursday, 22 July 2010

TV

Dragons' Den
8x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

TV

That Mitchell and Webb Look
4x02 Episode 2
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Wallander [Swedish]
2x11 Arvet (aka The Heritage)

Articles

My Two Cents (20/7/10) by Bill Hunt
(from The Digital Bits)
Fantastic news for us Blu-ray fans: the risible release of Gladiator is being done-over with a new transfer. And it looks properly stunning too -- I'm sure even uninitiated Normal People will be able to see how much sharper the lines are, how much more accurate the colours look, and so on. Now all that remains to be seen is if it makes its way to the UK -- in the US and, it would seem, some other countries, Paramount are responsible for distributing it and are re-releasing the new transfer; but in the UK it's owned by Universal... oh dear. Well, if they don't, I'll just buy the US version and they shan't have my cash. So ner.

Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss interview: Sherlock by Michael Leader
(from Den of Geek!)
Some of this is familiar from earlier articles (I'm guessing it was a roundtable interview, especially as it mentions how "we ventured out to the BBC studios in Wales with a bunch of eager journalists"), but there are enough new bits to hold the interest of the interested.

Tuesday, 20 July 2010

TV

How I Met Your Mother
5x08 The Playbook
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Stand Up for the Week
1x04 (16/7/10 edition)
No sooner had I accepted that Jack Whitehall might be getting good than he turned rubbish again. Ho hum.
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

Top Gear
15x04 (18/7/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Films

Inglourious Basterds (2009)
[2nd watch]

I first watched this back in December, when it became #82 in 100 Films in a Year 2009. And now, over 7 months later, I've still not got round to reviewing it. I don't know if that's a personal record (it felt like I took a pretty long time to get to The Green Mile, but it was only actually two months -- child's play to me these days), but it's still far too long.

And so, I have watched it again -- partly to jog my memory so I can finally write the damn review, and partly just cos it's great.